Testing for perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in New Hampshire started in Merrimack, and the state said the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics facility is the likely source of the contamination. Other sites contaminated with PFOA have since been found, most recently at a former industrial site in Amherst.

The growing investigation, the testing and the distribution of bottled water might not be happening if not for Michael Hickey, a man in Hoosick Falls who lost his father to kidney cancer in 2013.

"He worked 11 to 7 at night in the factory, and then he would drive a school bus during the day," Hickey said.

Hickey's father spent his career working with perfluorochemicals. His death shortly after retirement from the Saint-Gobain facility in Hoosick Falls struck his son as deeply unfair.

"Just because he worked so hard for so long, you know?" Hickey said. "You work two jobs for 32 years concurrently. He didn't smoke, and he didn't drink, and there was no real rhyme or reason."

When a local teacher also died of cancer, Hickey began his own investigation. He started with a simple Google search about PFOA, also known as C-8.

"The first thing that pops up is kidney cancer," he said.

Hickey spent months reading studies about C-8 and consulted with a local doctor before bringing his concerns to local government. But at that time, there was no willingness to test the water.

"So I said, 'If you're not going to do it, I'll do it,'" Hickey said.

Hickey's samples came back with elevated levels of PFOA. It took another six months before the town and Saint-Gobain began their own testing. One sample at the Saint-Gobain facility on the south end of Hoosick Falls came back at more than 18,000 parts per trillion.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set an advisory limit of no more than 70 parts per trillion for PFOA.

A few hundred yards away from the Saint-Gobain plant are wells that supply the entire village. Hickey's fight went on for almost a year before the EPA finally intervened and told people to not drink the water.

"That was the frustrating part, because the EPA and the state were never on the same page," Hickey said.

There are two Saint-Gobain facilities in Hoosick Falls, and they are the economic lifeblood of the community. That fact wasn't lost on Hickey as he refused to give up in his quest for answers.

"There's still a divide," he said. "Some people will say that I've done a great thing. Then other people are going to say that I'm going to cost the village 200 jobs."

Nearby Bennington College in Vermont is launching a new study of PFOA and the state's responses to the contamination. David Bond, associate director of the college's Center for the Advancement of Public Action, said the term "whistleblower" doesn't fully capture what Hickey's persistence has done.

"I prefer hero, but whistleblower -- that's fine," Bond said.

There's also a PFOA problem in North Bennington at a former Saint-Gobain site. Vermont has set the highest standard nationally for PFOA in drinking water, saying that anything over 20 parts per trillion is unsafe.

"Where other states have applied those health risks to a healthy adult, Vermont looked at what the health threshold would be for an infant, which led them to come up with a smaller number," Bond said.

In Hoosick Falls, new water filtration systems are in place that were paid for by Saint-Gobain.

Hickey and others are joining a class-action lawsuit to get lifetime medical testing for local children.

"I've gone with just the thought of, 'What's right?'" Hickey said. "What I believe to be right, what I thought my dad would want, what my son (would want). My son's going to be entering kindergarten next year, and we're not going anywhere, so I want him to be safe."